10th Annual Commercialisation of University Research Student Awards 2016

The tenth annual Commercialisation of University Research Student Awards was recently held at DCU Business School.  The Award is for the best commercialisation plan based on a new technological product or service created by university researchers. Students identify the best route to market for the technologies and undertake extensive research on competitors, markets and customers.

Launched in 2006, the award recognises the contribution of student projects to the university’s knowledge transfer activities. The projects are undertaken as part of the Innovation and High Technology Entrepreneurship Module on the MSc in Electronic Commerce Programme.  The Award is coordinated by Teresa Hogan and Geraldine Lavin of DCU Business School, Regina Reulbach of DCU Insight Research Institute and Invent DCU.

The objective is to provide students with an understanding of the key issues involved in the successful commercialisation of new technology-based products or services. It also provides scientists with the opportunity to test the commercial potential of their research. Over 150 technologies have been investigated to date and several researchers have used the commercialisation plans to source funds for continuing research.

This year’s winning team are Levon Amirkhanyan and Damilare, Olowoniyi, Robert Kavanagh, Peter McGee and Luke Zgaga who worked on ‘Title Redacting Personal Information on Videos’.

This project is a joint collaboration between DCU researcher, Cathal Gurrin from the Insight Research Institute and data information consultants Castlebridge Associates.  The students examined the commercial viability of starting a business to providing an automatic third party service to detect personal information, blur faces and redact video footage with evidentiary metadata logging changes.  The technology responds to the increasing demands on companies to comply with the Freedom of Information request for video footage by members of public.